Sick, sick, sick

All three boys are sick. What fun. The oldest has chickenpox. All three were exposed, but he's the only one with spots (he's had them for three days now). The middle son has an earache, a cough, and a fever, and the youngest has a cold-type thing that he's had for about a week. Oh, and my husband has a cold, too.

My mother-in-law is freaking out about chickenpox (I wouldn't have told her, but my husband did). That conversation went to the point of her asking if our oldest had had his other vaccinations. I think my husband may have lied to her, but I haven't seen the email so I take no responsibility for it.

Every so often I'm reminded that the many of the decisions that I've made with relative confidence are not the same ones that other people make. And my paradigm is just so different that it's hard to explain my choices. The possibility of convincing anyone that my choices are correct is small if they don't have a predisposition to agree; my best hope is to persuade them that I've made decisions in a thoughtful way, and that I've done research along the way. At least, I think that's the best I can hope for.

I'm not happy about having sick kids, but I stand fast on vaccinations. I think they are a mistake. They may have limited usefullness in areas with high mortality rates and high disease rates, but in my situation the risks far outweight the benefits. My kids can weather a bug -- brain damage and autoimmune diseases are harder to overcome, and affect quality of life in the long term.